The Gray Man is streaming on Netflix.ONCE you have reduced Chris Evans to unflattering haircut, stern moustache, pleated Ts and white trousers, and cast him as a sociopath ex-Agent called Llyod who likes to torture, among other eccentricities, you better make it fly. The Gray Man does no such thing, evoking the effortless charm of Evans and getting as much out of it as the flat metallic shield of Captain America.
If he is the villain, Ryan Gosling is the hero of this by-the-numbers, been there-done that film about the dirty world of government agencies within agencies with “big secrets” to keep. Which is carried around in a SIM card on a pendant displayed publicly. Hmm.
Gosling might perhaps be the only thing good about The Gray Man, and that’s because he brings that right amount of disinterest which makes his character, by the name of Sierra No. Six, interesting. You want to rescue him, even if he considers himself un-rescuable. Thornton as the father figure Six finds early on is quite good too, while acting against type.
There is a third charming actor almost blunted to dullness here, Ana de Armas, whose Agent Miranda is at the right place at the wrong time, then at the wrong place at the wrong time, then at the wrong place at the right time, till she decides to pick Six as the side she wants to be on. At least Miranda is right in the thick of action after that, though always in the shadow of Six.
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Dhanush plays the “sexy Tamil man”, one of the many mercenaries that Lloyd summons from across the world to get hold of the aforementioned SIM card.
Dhanush wields a Rudraksh and doesn’t mind killing and banging a woman around, till he suddenly has a change of heart — still counting the Rudraksh. Maybe Lloyd’s comment when Dhanush appears looking all roughed up, while bearing the SIM, has something to do with it: “You look like you have been hit by a bus, but that just adds to your mystery.”
If that sounds awfully patronising, the worst lot is Harvard’s. For some reason, the Russo brothers (they of the Captain America fame) invoke that hallowed institution several times to underline the Agency’s connection with it.
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